Lauren Long, Ph.D.Candidate, Department of Psychological Sciences. 

Currently a Ph.D candidate studying in vivo hippocampal electrophysiology in behaving rodents, Lauren Long is a recent recipient of the American Psychological Foundation/Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology (APF/COGDOP) 2015 scholarship. Lauren has a strong interest in understanding cooperative interactions between groups of neurons and how such interactions may underlie high-level cognitive operations, such as memory. By using rodent models, Lauren is able to probe critical questions in neuroscience—what determines the strength of memory representations and what is the time course for neuronal activation? A better understanding of neuronal circuit mechanisms that underlie memory formation should facilitate our understanding of how pathophysiological disruptions in network activity relate to cognitive and sensorimotor processing.

After Lauren earns her Ph.D, her goal is to make use of her skill-set and knowledge by gaining post-doctoral experience working with human clinical populations using cutting-edge electrophysiological techniques such as ECoG, depth electrodes and DBS.